For four years, Lisa Smith’s son had gone missing, but despite her search turning up nothing, she still had hope of seeing him again. Then, out of nowhere, he reached out to her and told her where she could find him. But getting to the boy was a lot harder than anyone realized.
25-year-old Lisa was originally from Haiti but was now living in Orlando, Florida when she had her son, Gregory Jr., with Gregory Jean. His brother Samuel was born a year later. But Lisa and Gregory’s relationship hit a snag and they never married. Eventually, they broke up and came to an agreement on payments for their children and visitation rights. For a while, everything seemed to be just fine.
Gregory Jr always claimed to love his dad, even though they didn’t see each other often. In fact, he tried calling his dad every day after school to let him know how his day went. While not idyllic, at least his dad kept up with his son’s life. But when Gregory Sr remarried, everything changed.
Gregory Sr married Samantha Davis and the two moved in together to Atlanta, Georgia. Meanwhile, Gregory Jr and Samuel missed their dad, so Lisa figured that she would let them visit once in a while. Gregory Sr was definitely on board, and the boys headed to Georgia on a bus. But only one child ended up returning back home.
Only Samuel had made it back home. He told Lisa that Samantha had gotten Gregory Jr to agree to let the boy stay with them for a bit longer. Lisa contacted Gregory Sr immediately to get an explanation, but he didn’t pick up, which meant she had no way of looking out for her son.
Lisa reached out to Orlando child services to tell them about her son’s situation. Since her immigration status was iffy, she decided that calling the police would be a bad idea. Still, she kept hoping that she’d find Gregory Jr. Over the next four years, Gregory Jr called her a few times, but he wasn’t able to tell her who he was with or where he was.
In 2014, Lisa received a friend request on Facebook and was shocked because it came from her son. She started texting him immediately. Then he called and told her had been living with Samantha and his dad. But she learned that Samantha told the boy that Lisa allowed him to stay with them to help Gregory Sr with financial issues. But they didn’t make him feel like family.
Gregory Jr told Lisa that Samantha had beaten him and his dad didn’t do anything about it. He also wanted to come home to her but wasn’t sure how. After giving her the address, Lisa had no choice but to call the cops. Orlando police contacted the authorities in Clayton County, Georgia, who decided to go toe Jean household and check up on them. But the situation was confusing.
Police paid a visit to Gregory Sr and Samantha who seemed to be quite cheerful. When the cops asked about the missing boy, they claimed they hadn’t seen him in years and that he wasn’t living with them. The assumed the child was in New York. The couple even allowed cops to check out the home and didn’t find anything. The cops left the house with nothing.
Lisa reached out to her soon as soon as she learned the police found nothing. He texted her specific instructions on how to find him. With that information, she got the cops to go back to the home and look again the following day. Cops got details in real-time from the child, which helped them to find a linen cupboard with a false wall in the garage. They broke in and there he was.
Between wooden beams and insulation, cops found Gregory Jr hidden in a cramped space. Cops helped him and they could tell he was very happy to see them. The boy told reporters: “I kept saying, ‘thank you, thank you.'” Lisa drove to Georgia that night with her older daughter the moment she was contacted by cops. She’d finally be with her son soon.
Lisa immediately ran towards her beloved soon and hugged him the moment she set her sights on him. “It feels good,” she claimed. “It was too long.” Gregory Jr was also crying but was happy. “This is my mama’s Christmas gift – my whole family – this is their Christmas gift.” The truth had come out shortly after the boy’s stepmother and dad were apprehended.
Authorities learned that Gregory Sr avoided paying child support by keeping his son in Georgia. At first, he was treated like a normal child and was even enrolled in school. Then, Samantha started making him clean the yard and the house and gave him a bucket to use as a toilet. The child also lived and slept in a cot in the garage. Things only got worse when he complained.
At school, Gregory Jr shared his home situation with counselors, but when school officials went to the house, the couple made it seem like the boy was just misbehaving. Then they removed him from school. The only education he then had involved a dictionary and writing words from it. Samantha would also hit him until he stopped asking for help. Then he got a call.
Gregory Sr gave his son a phone that had no service. Somehow, the boy figured a way to use the Wi-Fi network of the house to contact his mom on Facebook. Then he found an app that allowed him to call someone using Wi-Fi, which helped him to finally escape. But ironically, he didn’t want to see his captors behind bars.
“I just want to be free to live my life and let them live theirs,” said Gregory Jr, as he begged for leniency for his stepmother and dad. But cops charged the couple with false imprisonment and child cruelty anyway. Gregory Porter, the police chief, was shocked by where they had forced the child to stay. “No one should have been in that area where we found the victim.”